This article originated as one in a series of
blog entries on
unfair argumentation.
As soon turned out, it became too long and complex
to make a good blog entry (at least without further subdivision)—and I
chose instead to write an article for my website with
the intended blog entry
merely linking here.

Beware that many sources given below are in Swedish. Any
suggestions for English alternatives are welcome.

Introduction

This article focuses on the highly unfair and hypocritical treatment of the
controversial, but legitimate, Swedish party
Sverigedemokraternaw (SD). The treatment and the
party’s views will be discussed to various degrees below.

Largest
partner in
the current (–2010) center-right government. Traditionally, the second largest
party; however, it seems to slowly be overtaking S. (Interestingly, both
parties are moving more and more towards the center.)

My own position on SD

I am often moved by a wish to combat unfair and incorrect reasoning,
intellectual dishonesty, and similar.
An unfortunate problem is that I am often accused of following
an entirely different agenda relating to the matter at hand, rather than the
quality of reasoning
(see an earlier discussion).
So it has been with Sverigedemokraterna: I try to argue that they are unfairly
treated—and am immediately stamped as one of their supporters, whose opinion
is not only partial, but, ipso facto, wrong (because opinions held by
SD are, in the eyes of many, ipso facto wrong.)

Therefore, let it be unequivocally stated in advance: I am not an SD supporter.

Consider the following incomplete list of points with differences in opinion:

SD is nationalist.

I am bordering on being anti-nationalist.

SD feels that immigration and how it is handled is the central problem
in Sweden today—and are generally somewhat negative to non-trivial
amounts of immigration.

While I see many and severe
problems with current immigration levels and policies in Sweden, I am
myself an immigrant (to Germany), I believe that in the best of worlds everyone
should be allowed to himself decide where he lives, and I see immigration as
potentially immensely valuable (when handled correctly—which is not the
case today).

SD has a mostly positive view towards the “welfare state” and is
otherwise similar to the Swedish left on many issues.

I have noticeably more neoliberal and libertarian views
on questions like society and economic policy.

SD is a strong believer in the “traditional family”.

My feelings towards it are highly ambivalent—and decidedly negative where
at least some aspects are concerned.

SD is opposed to EU.

I am pro-EU (even if I admit some concerns
concerning both the implementation and power concentration in general).

SD wants a strong military.

I consider the military something that has little justification in today’s world
(in Sweden and Germany—other countries have very different situations).

On the balance, the differences in opinion
between me and SD are likely greater than between me and any of the
parties in the center-right coalition.
There are
similarities
in some opinions (including a dislike for the absurd degree of political
correctness there is in Sweden and the constant bowing to pseudo-scientific
gender-feministic propaganda and “research”)—but
the sum is nowhere near large enough to justify my being considered a
supporter, and I am certain
that if I read the current programs of the leftist parties
there would be a few similarities there too.

The core problem

SD is a nationalist party, critical of the current immigration policy—and
this stance is simply not accepted by the main-stream political parties,
newspapers, whatnot. (Despite some of them themselves having very similar
thoughts only a few decades ago...) Further, this stance
is what defines the party in the eyes of its opponents—unless they
“extremify” it by claiming that it is hostile to immigrants, racist, or
even nazistic. While these statements may be true for individual
members or supporters, they do not match the party line—no more than the
S wants to return to
margin tax hell
or Vänsterpartiet wants to start a
revolution. Certainly, there are supporters of the latter two parties
who, more covertly, are also hostile to immigrants, racist, and, yes, possibly
even nazistic.

As for their remaining political program (see above for parts of it),
they are at most center-right, more likely center, possibly even center-left,
on the classical left-right scale, with many issues common to the Swedish
leftist parties, including being in favour of more welfare and opposing the EU.
(Generally, they are somewhat eclectic and, with the common automatic
mark of “extreme right”, based on their nationalistic and
immigration-critical stance, they are an excellent example of why this scale
can bring more confusion than clarity.)

SD is a perfectly legitimate party with opinion-poll results giving them
a good chance at parliamentary representation in the upcoming elections
of 2010.
They do have a semi-shady background if we go back some twenty
years, but the same applies to Vänsterpartiet.
Certainly, the
ideals of Vänsterpartiet are less democratic and less in line with established
“Western” politics/ideals, when viewed as a whole—yet, Vänsterpartiet is
treated as legitimate and SD is shunned, maligned (as opposed to factually and
fairly criticized), and physically attacked. Even Feministiskt
Initiativ,
which watches the world through
“gender-glasses” (“genusglasögon”), which
distorts it to the point of absurdity, is treated better.

The treatment

Distortions of opinions and unfair debating

SD is a common victim of over-generalization and distortion of opinion,
e.g. in the claim that it is racist
and/or anti-immigrant (instead of being spread over the entire
spectrum, beginning with those who merely criticize the details of the current
immigration policy—or even support the party for reasons not related to
immigration). In particular, it is very rare that any other aspect of
SD’s ideas and opinions are discussed except those related to immigration
issues. Rhetorical and ad hominem attacks are common, while few of
the opposing groups actually bother to debate the issues at hand, provide
arguments and counter-arguments, do fact-checks, whatnot. Indeed many of
the counter-claims are, in turn, lacking backing evidence.

Side-note:

Unfortunately, no party is perfectly free from such behaviours, but it tends
to be worse on the left—and SD is the victim disproportionally often.

Still, for the sake of completeness, SD too is an occasional sinner, e.g.
by (at events during the writing of this article) using the phrase
“democracy haters” (“demokratihatare”) against people who organized
a less-than-civilized protest, including e.g. throwing of eggs, against an SD
demonstration: Clearly, these are haters of SD who do not play by the
democratic rules; however, that does not automatically
make them haters of democracy.

Unfair treatment

SD is often treated in very different manner from other political parties.
Among the various types of discrimination and disparate treatment they have
been victims of:

(– As a matter of principle, if a political party candidating for parliament
wants to advertise and the contents of the advertisement are legal, then the
advertisement must be published. Should the contents break the law it becomes
an issue for the police [...]

– If SD are stopped now, who will be stopped the next time?)

Side-note:

The famous statement
First they came...w
may be worth considering under the circumstances: While it is unlikely
that the Swedish situation ends as badly, there is a very definite problem
with uniformization of opinion, lack of tolerance to deviation in opinion,
a worship of The Official PC Truth, etc. This while, in a hypocritical twist,
near-unconditional tolerance of other cultures, religions, whatnot, is one the
cornerstones of the PC ideology.

An online paper (SD-Kuriren) run by SD was shut down for having
publicized a caricature of Muhammed after
Säpow (“security police”)
contacted the paper’s ISP.
It appears that the paper was only allowed back online after removing
the caricature.

The Moderate and Social-Democratic parties (roughly Tory and Labour) in
Stockholm have expressed a wish to form an alliance after the local election,
rather than giving SD any influence. This despite having to very heavily
compromise the ideals, politics, etc., that their respective voters actually
(will have) voted for in order to do so.
(Swedish sourcee.)

(- Sverigedemokraterna is the party that by far has been most exposed
[to violence, etc.]
during the last year [2007]—they are a priority target for the
[violent extreme leftist] groups, says Karin
Lönnheden, chief analyst at Säpow.
Within one week four actions against individual members have taken place.
Three have been assaulted and one has had his facade
[in context likely the exterior of his house] painted with graffiti with
hidden threats.)

(An investigation by Kaliber [program on public service, license financed
radio] shows that Sverigedemokraterna have been exposed to violence or threats
at at least 35
occasions in the last three years. Thirty-something members have been attacked,
threatened, or had their homes vandalized, several [many?] on repeated
occasions.

The windows of their homes are broken by cobblestones. Doors are struck with
axes. Cars are vandalized.

Several of the affected have chosen to leave their political assignments.
According to the police there is a large number of unreported cases
[“mörkertal”, lit. “darkness number”, has no direct translation].
)

(Interestingly, almost all politically motivated violence I recall in Sweden
has been leftist extremist, sometimes even by members of
Vänsterpartiet’s youth organisation—while the mother party sat in
parliament.)

Reasons for the outrageous behaviour

As far as the Swedish left is concerned, this behaviour is, unfortunately,
unsurprising: Large portions of the left are either trapped in a black-and-white
thinking or apply a the-means-justify-the-ends policy. Furthermore, the use
of exaggerated enemy images is a staple of (in particular) leftist propaganda
through-out time. The examples of this are many, and it is even a recommended
modus
operandi in some socialist or communist works (including e.g.
Mao’s little red bookw).
During my time in Moderaterna’s youth organisation, I often heard leftist
propaganda satirically summed up as “Moderaterna äter barn.” (“Moderaterna
eats children.”)—and bear in mind that M is not in anyway an extremist
party, but stands somewhat to the left of the US Republicans and the UK Tories.

The disturbing thing is the more or less universal rejection and unfair
propaganda. Here I would speculate that there are situations where it can
be dangerous not to denounce a certain opinion, behaviour, religion, whatnot,
because not doing so would expose those not rejecting to rejection on the
same grounds. Similar situations can be seen in e.g. some contexts like
Soviet-Russia or the Spanish Inquisition. When not being devout or dedicated
enough can be cause for denunciation or imprisonment, few dare to waver—and
a risk of individuals trying to “one-up” each other in devotedness is
present. The same applies when failing to condemn brings a risk of self being
condemned.
Indeed, As mentioned above, I have myself
repeatedly been denounced as an SD supporter—merely for requesting more
intellectual honesty in the debate.

Notably, in a larger PC context, the exact same fate of undue rejection has
happened to a number of people making statements that are, by all signs known
to me, approximately true, including prominent examples like
the authors of the Bell Curvew (evil racists) and
Larry Summersw (evil sexist).
Anyone who does not condemn them is automatically deemed just as evil (i.e.
guilty of questioning or contradicting an ideologically determined
“truth”)—and is the next to be burned at the stake.

Side-note:

As I discovered during writing, Hitler had some very interesting and insightful
views on how to best use political propaganda and how the German left was
doing so. This is discussed in the logically
following blog entry.

Nazi analogy

Now, the reader may want to raise concerns along the lines that the Nazis seemed
comparatively harmless at first, and that any sign of something similar must
be stomped out at the first opportunity. Certainly, this is the attitude
displayed by some debaters. If so, I ask to consider that:

We must apply in dubio pro reo, or any form of civilized politics will
become impossible.

The Nazis had much further-going ideas on their program from an early
stage. We could then just as well ban S (let alone Vänsterpartiet)
for fear of Stalinesque dictatorship and genocide.

The situation in Germany at the time was very different: The
probability that SD will become more than a minor party in the foreseeable
future is far smaller.
The probability that SD could push through
anything even resembling Nazi-Germany is negligible.

This assuming, obviously, that SD will turn out to be a new version of the
Nazis—which, again, is no more likely than a new Stalin rising on the Swedish
left.

Other parties and political organisations that are behaving far worse
or advocating policies more akin to those of dangerous dictatorships are not
attacked in the same manner.

Who is evil, prejudiced, whatnot?

Paradoxically, many of the anti-SD people commit the exact same errors and
malignancies that they (often incorrectly) claim that SD commits—most notably
over-generalization. Certainly, I see a greater threat to a civilized
political climate, freedom of speech, and similar from the anti-SD direction.
Certainly, in the (hypothetical and unlikely) event that the Swedish situation
degenerates to something akin to
UK in
V for Vendettaw
or Nazi-Germany,
I have no doubt that it will be either leftist
or PC/feminist extremists who are behind it—not SD.

Not everyone who appears evil is evil; not everyone who appears good is good.
Furthermore, the evil that appears good is the far greater threat than the
evil that actually appears evil—and many of the greatest evils have been
committed by people convinced that they were, in fact, the good guys.

Update after the Swedish elections of 2010

SD did indeed manage to receive parliamentary representation. More information
can be found on my blog, most notably in an entry dealing with
the post-election treatment of SD
(no improvement, unfortunately).

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